Barb Email Challenged

Barb was watching the pickleball channel on Youtube.   

Then for some reason she wanted to look up how to spell “bachelor”.  Somehow she sent an email to the pickleball channel with only the word “bachelor”.   

They were nice enough to email back saying they didn’t understand her email.   

Barb is email challenged like I am text message challenged.

Pickleball Coincidence

There was a reception at city hall for Ottawa sports month.  Barb met the mayor.  She and her pickleball friends were shown up by the roller derby ladies who came in their roller derby uniforms.

Later that week, Barb and her friends did a pickleball demonstration outside city hall.  There very few people who came out to see them.  One lady who did come out said she knew about pickleball because her mother played.  Barb asked where her mother played.  The lady said Dartmouth.  Barb asked her mother’s name.  It turned out that Barb had met her mother the day before when she played pickleball in Dartmouth while we were visiting Laura.

Laura’s Eastern Canada Pole Competition

Laura decided to stay in Halifax this summer primarily to compete in the Eastern Canada Pole Competition.  She was working hard on her doubles routine with a boy from Atlantic Cirque.  She was very excited about competing.  Unfortunately, at the last minute her partner dropped out on her.  He said he had a family emergency and had to go home on the weekend of the competition.  Laura figured he had to go home because the family cat had died.

Laura had worked so hard on her doubles routine that she had neglected her solo routine.  Suddenly, her solo was her only routine and she had to develop her routine from scratch.

Barb and I flew to Halifax for the weekend.  We rented a car at the airport and drove to downtown Halifax.  We dropped in to see Laura at the studio.  When we got off the elevator and we were surprised to see Laura right outside the door.  Laura couldn’t talk to us long because she was working on her routine with an instructor.

We met Laura after leaving her studio but Laura had to work on her costume.  So we dropped her off at a friend’s house.

The next day was the competition.  Laura had to be at the casino, where the competition was being held, at noon.  So Barb drove her there in the morning over the bridge from Dartmouth to Halifax in hurricane winds.  Laura checked in and got her instructions about the competition.  Then she went to buy hair dye and makeup.  She dyed her hair in the washroom of the casino.

We went to the casino in the evening for the show.  We really enjoyed the pole dancing, the music and the lights.  There was a comedienne as a master of ceremonies who was very funny.

Laura was the very last person to perform.  She was in the professional division of the solo group.  We thought she did a terrific routine and she looked great in her costume and makeup.  It was funny that she was using the same music as another competitor but we didn’t notice.  She came fourth so was just out of the medals.  We didn’t understand what the judges were looking for.

Barb took some good pictures with her iPod.  I put one as the screen saver on my iPod as a memory.

Impromptu Trip to Halifax

Laura wanted us to come to Halifax to see her pole competition.  We thought about driving and realized it would be crazy to drive all that way for just a weekend.  So we booked a last minute flight on Porter Airlines.

Laura was busy rehearsing when we arrived.  So Barb and I went sightseeing.  The hills of downtown Halifax are crazy.  We parked at the top of the hill and walked down to the harbour where we had lunch.  It was a lovely warm day even though it was very windy.  There was supposedly a hurricane hitting Halifax that weekend.  We finished our sightseeing but Laura was still busy.  Since we were parked close to the Citadel, we decided to walk up to the Citadel and take some pictures of the hills down to the harbour.

Laura texted us while we were at the Citadel saying she was finished.  She asked where we were.  I am not good at texting and Barb didn’t have her glasses.  So I tried to text her back saying we were at the Citadel but only sent the word “The”.  Barb and I laughed and laughed.  Laura said "Nice Dad".

Laura was living in Dartmouth in a mansion of a house.

On Saturday, Laura had her competition.  So we didn’t see her much.  But in the evening after the competition Laura and I watched Moneyball.  Laura thought it was just like the way I study fastball.

On Sunday morning, Barb went to play pickleball in Dartmouth.  In the afternoon, we all went to see the Tattoo at the Arena.  Afterwards, we went down to the harbour for dinner.  Then we spent a long time talking to a lady with a great dane.  We hung around outside the Jazz Festival talking to Laura's good friend Benham.

On Monday, morning we drove around Halifax and Dartmouth to see all the places where Laura had lived.

We dropped into Tour Tech where Laura worked full-time.  We met her big boss.  He was a really interesting self-made man.  He said Laura was doing a great job with her lighting.  Laura showed us around the place.  There seemed to be a large number of eccentric people who worked there.  So Laura fit in well.

Then we went next door to see where she does acrobatics with Atlantic Cirque.  There was an awkward moment when Laura saw her pole partner who stood her up at the pole competition.

Before we left to come home, we went to the old NSCAD building to see where Laura did her art.  It is a really neat old building with a lot of sneaky passageways.   

Then we drove to the airport and dropped off the rental car.  Laura and I had icecaps and Barb had a café mocha’s at the Tim Horton’s in the airport.  By the time we got through security, the airline was calling our name to board the plane.  We were that last people to board the plane before they closed the gate.  Our seats were also at the back of the plane.  So everyone on the plane saw us coming in late.

Honesty in Oil Changing

Barb was very impressed by Mr Lube.  She took the car in for an oil change.  The man at Mr Lube gave her a newspaper and a coffee.  He checked her oil and told her she didn’t need an oil change yet.  Usually, the men at Mr Lube try to sell her things she doesn’t need.  They must be turning over a new leaf.

More Fastball Frustrations

As captain of my team in the Glen Cairn Men's Fastball League, I have to find spares if we will be short of players for a game.  We were down to six players one night.  I spent the whole day trying to find three spare players.  I emailed and phoned everyone on the team lists before I finally found three players for the 6:30 game.  Then when I got to the diamond at 6 o'clock, I found out the other team wasn’t going to show up.  What a drag!

Radar Chick

As the scheduler for my two fastball leagues, I have to be close to my computer on any days which might have rain.  Barb and I spend a lot of time looking at the radar on the computer trying to predict whether it will rain at game time.  If we think it will rain at 6:30, I have to call the captains and the umpires to cancel the game by 5 pm so that the league doesn’t have to pay for the umpires and the field.

I call Barb "radar chick" and always ask her opinion on the radar information.

One day Roger, a captain in the Trend Arlington league, called me around 4 pm suggesting the game that night should be cancelled because of rain.  Barb thought he was crazy.  She thought the rain would stop and the field would be fine by game time.  I drove to the diamond to check it out.  It wasn’t bad.  However, he convinced me to cancel the game.

The rest of the players in the league thought I had made a terrible mistake.  The rain did stop and the sun came out and dried the field.  I realized later why Roger wanted to cancel the game so bad was because he couldn’t field a team and didn’t want to default.